‘I’m fine,’ I say, forcing myself to focus on the task in hand.
But I’m not fine, and neither is the task in hand. Because as I’m typing out a catchy bio, I get the most overwhelming feeling that this is all wrong. That I’m enabling something I can’t bear the thought of. That if I write this profile for him, and list all his great qualities, and attach the photos of him looking lovely, a lot of women will match. And when that happens, and he gets invested in one of them – because he will, he’s far too pure for Tinder – his new girlfriend will, rightly, monopolise his time. Our friendship will become muted and sporadic until I’m just another ex-colleague in his phone. Someone who gets birthday wishes on Facebook and round robin texts at New Year. It’s too horrible a thought to contemplate, so I make a split second, yet entirely conscious, decision. I delete all the good things I’ve just typed and start again. Beer, football, days on the beach, nights in the pub, live music, makes videos for a living…
‘Have you been to Pen Y Fan?’ I ask.
‘No. Why?’
‘Ah no reason.’
…Never been to Pen Y Fan.
‘Done,’ I say, with as much triumph as I can muster, tossing him the phone. ‘I’m getting another one. Same again?’
‘We’re going hard at it tonight then?’ he says.
‘You wish, baby,’ I tell him.
But I veer off to the toilets instead of straight to the bar, and stare at myself long and hard in the mirror.
I can’t stop thinking about that picture. And now I’m wondering how I’ve been so blind as to miss what was right there. Or maybe I’m seeing things differently because for the first time since I’ve known him, Ollie’s single, and so am I, and that kiss last year was electric, and now there’s nothing stopping us. I open up Facebook on my phone and load up his profile, swiping through all the photos until I find it again and enlarge it. Scrutinise it all: the way my head is tilted to the side and my shoulder is slumped, and my body is angled towards him, and one ankle is crossed behind the other. The way I’m looking up at him, drinking in what he was saying. Ignoring everyone else in the entire office to the point that I didn’t even notice the photo being taken at all. He’s looking down at me, too. His hair floppy over his face, hiding his eyes, though he’s smiling and I don’t even have to see them to know they’ll be crinkled and shiny and clear and green.
And then, as I’m queuing at the bar, I think about the profile I’ve set up for him, and how mediocre I’ve made it. I never swipe right on profiles that only list attributes. Carlina always argues that they’re efficient, and says that when you’re swiping, you make a snap decision so bullet points are perfectly acceptable, but I just think they’re lazy. If someone can’t be bothered to invest in an interesting profile when they’re trying to make a good impression, what else won’t they be bothered with?
So what I’ve written is really an act of sabotage. I’ve created a profile I wouldn’t swipe right on, in the hope that others will also be put off, too. And by not adding the usual disclaimer, that the female in the photo is a sister or a friend or a cousin, I’m marking my territory. If the unimaginative profile isn’t enough to dissuade people, that picture of us staring at each other should do the trick. Now I’m a hotchpotch of emotions and all of them are big. A real friend would only want happiness for him. But what if that happiness involves me? A real friend wouldn’t meddle the way I have. But perhaps if I didn’t we’d both miss out. I’m racked with guilt, and yet, when I think back to last December, I’m not. Maybe sabotage is too strong a word for it. Maybe it’s better to look at it as the creation of an opportunity. I’ll buy our drinks and I’ll look at him the same way I am in Carlina’s photo. I’ll sit a little closer and let my eyes linger on his for just a little longer than necessary.
Now I look back towards our table. He’s leaning over it, his head in one hand, concentrating on his phone. Swiping? It doesn’t look like it but I can’t be sure from here. He’s tapping his foot. The way his jeans stretch over his thighs is nice. So is the outline of his shoulders through his top. As if he’s felt me watching, he looks up and does a dorky little wave and there’s a hum of attraction. And my head conjures up that moment at last year’s Christmas party again until I can almost feel his cold nose against mine and the freezing bricks against my back through my coat. Until I remember exactly how he kissed and our warm, damp breath, condensing into clouds and floating away into the night.
Shall we pretend, Fran, just for a few moments, that we don’t belong to anyone else? Well, now we don’t.
The bartender takes my order, and I ask for a little cup of green olives and another of peanuts as well, and as I’m staring at the amber liquid filling up a pint glass I finally admit to myself that Carlina has been right all along. Oh my god. I am in love with Ollie.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘You took your time,’ he says, as I put his fresh pint on the table. A little bit of beer laps over the side and dribbles down the glass. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d escaped through the bog windows until I saw you at the bar.’
‘Sorry, queue in the ladies’,’ I lie. ‘So, show me photos of your trip.’
He shuffles closer and whips his phone out again, scrolls right to the beginning and swipes through.
‘Gatwick… our plane from departures… Lou looking a bit… well, maybe I’ll delete that. Me looking—’
‘Excited! You look so excited.’
‘I was. Amsterdam. God, Amsterdam was a treat.’
‘Did you hire bikes?’
‘We did. Felt like true Dutchies! And a couple of Italian guys hooked me up with some weed.’
‘When in the Dam, I guess. Did you pull a whitey?’
He looks at me sideways. ‘Nah. Course not.’
The pictures change from summertime Amsterdam, with leaves clinging on to tree branches and canals and clogs and cheese and caramel stroopwafels to rural Italy. Rolling fields and pale blue skies, and houses scattered across the landscape like someone had flung them there.
‘This is beautiful,’ I say. Ollie looks thoughtful.
‘It was really cool,’ he says. ‘We had such a nice time fruit-picking. And I can’t get over the food we were served up every night. So fresh.’
‘God, that looks delicious,’ I say, taking his phone and zooming in on a plate of tomatoes, drizzled with glossy yellow oil and minced garlic and basil. In the background, an olive-studded ciabatta, a plate of grilled fish, another of meat. Wine in carafes. Happy faces around the table. I hand his phone back and briefly, our fingers touch. I reach for my glass, suddenly nervous.
‘I thought we’d be out of our comfort zone,’ he says, ‘but somehow we all managed. It’s amazing how nice food can bring people together. Oh, and that bread was made with local olives.’
‘Speaking of delicious food, and I realise it’s getting on, but I’m starving, and it’s the weekend so shall we get a takeaway pizza and eat it back at my flat? Something cheesy.’
‘Cheesy like you, Fran,’ he says, and ruffles my hair. There’s a whiff of his aftershave, and it knocks me for six. It’s the same one he’s always worn, and I’ve smelt it on him a million times before but tonight it’s intoxicating. Tonight it’s turned me to jelly. What is the matter with me? Ovulating. I must be ovulating. Suddenly I’m jealous of Lou. Jealous of what they had. Jealous that they went off on an adventure and that she got to share that beautiful food with him. That it was her experience as well as his.
But then, cheesy like me? What does that mean? Is that something you’d say to someone you fancy?
‘You know me,’ I croak. ‘I can’t say no to a cheese pizza. I’ll order it as we leave. Keep going. I want to see more.’
We stay longer, sifting through Ollie’s travelling snaps: photos of them both at Pompei and on beaches; sunsets, and food, and views; ruins in Greece and skyscrapers in Singapore. Ollie explains where each one was taken and what they were doing and what was so great a
bout that exact moment in time that he wanted to capture it forever, and I sit there, leaning into him, my head resting against his shoulder, wanting this moment in time to last as long as it can. We stay until they’ve rung the bell for last orders, and then come round to ask us to drink up. It’s dark and chilly and the ArcelorMittal Orbit is lit up red across the park. I order a Deliveroo as we leave Westfield.
‘I had a cheeky swipe when you were at the bar earlier,’ Ollie says, and suddenly I want to vomit. So that was what he was doing. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him. It isn’t reciprocated in the slightest. I am gal pal Fran and nothing more, relegated to dating app enabler and fun friend to drink with. Of course I’m nothing more. You wouldn’t ask someone you fancied to set up your Tinder account. You’d just turn the flirting up to eleven and make your move. Like I was going to.
‘Oh yeah?’ I say, concentrating on the ground. I’m glad it’s dark because suddenly I’m burning up and I know my face will be flushed. ‘Any matches?’
‘Not right at that moment,’ he says.
‘There will be. If you swipe them, they will come.’
I feel heavy and light at once. Waves of heat radiate all over me. My brain feels as if it’s squeezed and my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with paper and I gulp from the bottle of water in my handbag. I wish I’d never written that profile for him. I wish I’d realised sooner and refused. I wish it had never come up. If I hadn’t mentioned Carlina wanting to play Tinder on our lunch break it might never have crossed his mind. But then, if I hadn’t mentioned it I wouldn’t have seen that photo. Right now I’m not sure which is better. I wobble a little on my feet, cross with myself now, steeling myself for watching him try and meet someone who isn’t me whilst I stuff pizza in my mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ Ollie asks. His face is open and full of concern. He doesn’t have a clue how I’m feeling. But if ever there was a time to say something, it’s now. I’m fuelled by fear and adrenaline and rosé. If I get shot down I might regret it but at least tomorrow I can send an apology text and blame it on the booze. If I miss this chance I might never get another one.
‘I’m just a bit drunker than I thought,’ I say. ‘The fresh air just hit me.’ I fan my face and look upwards at the blanket of orangey-grey clouds in a light-polluted sky. He puts his arm around my shoulders to steady me and all my insides churn and my heart pounds. ‘Actually… I have something I need to say to you.’
‘What’s that then?’
We’ve stopped walking now. My voice wavered. He can see I’m shaking. I’ve never been terrified of sharing my feelings like this but it’s all hit me so out of the blue. I take a deep breath and stare at the pavement.
‘I don’t want you to go on Tinder,’ I mumble.
‘Pardon?’
‘I don’t… I said, I don’t want you to go on Tinder.’
Ollie laughs but he stops when he sees I’m not.
‘Why not, Fran?’
‘Because… Okay, when you left Viral Hive, I was gutted. More gutted than I ever let on. I moped around. I withdrew a bit. Things were quieter. Things were shit, actually. Someone left a condolences card on my desk—’
‘What? Who did that?’
‘I don’t know. It was anonymous, meant as some sort of lighthearted joke, but I went to the loos and had a silent weep. God.’ I look around us, focusing on anything but him. The pavement. The bus stop. The pelican crossing. The reflection from the street lamp in the damp empty road. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I didn’t even tell Carlina. I just shoved it in my bag and binned it when I got home.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ he says. He hugs me and that somehow makes it easier. I can say it all over his shoulder and the words will just float off into the London air. They’ll be gone as soon as I’ve said them. It’s familiar, too, being held like this by him. My hands find their way to his jacket. My fingers push through a buttonhole.
‘So anyway, then you came home and here we are and it all just hit me when I saw that photo of us at work. And Carlina has said it all along. Did you know that? She’s been saying it for ages, actually, and I always thought she was talking bollocks but now I think she might have been right after all.’
I cling on to his jacket tighter. My nails dig themselves into my palms.
‘Fran. What are you saying? What’s Carlina been saying?’ he asks, and I think, men can be so stupid sometimes.
‘I don’t want you to go on Tinder and I don’t want you to meet someone else because I think I might be into you.’ There. It’s done.
He pulls away, but I only loosen my grip, and he can’t go far. We stand there, outside Stratford station, arms around each other, the pizza all but forgotten, and I’ve just said something that, however this goes, could fundamentally change things between us.
‘You think? Or you know?’ he asks, and I’m briefly curious as to why he’s not more surprised at my admission.
‘Know,’ I whisper. And there’s no floating away of that word. It’s going to hang, festooned between us forever. ‘And I’m sorry. It’s horrible timing. You’ve just got back after what I can only imagine has been a really awful shock, and the first thing I do is say this. And I’m meant to be your friend. I am your friend. And you have to believe I didn’t plan this, okay? Well, I mean, how could I have done? Just… that photo of us, and how happy I am to see you again, and all of this tonight. And—’
‘Frances,’ he says, interrupting me.
‘Yes?’
And then he kisses me, so softly that at first I barely register it’s happening at all. I just stand there, by the bus depot, gripping onto his jacket as his lips brush against mine, and it’s not until he moves his hand across my back that I crank into gear and reciprocate. His arms tighten a little around me. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other in the way drunk people do and I curl my hand around the back of his neck and press myself against him.
The kiss lasts just a few seconds, but it feels much longer, like when the dreams slow down in Inception and the minibus falls off the bridge. My stomach feels like that bus. My head is filled with a Hans Zimmer epic. We pull away slightly, and stare at each other.
‘I wasn’t ready,’ I say, a little embarrassed. ‘You took me by surprise.’
He shrugs. ‘Do you want a do over?’
‘Yes. Do you say that to all the ladies?’
No. I don’t want to know what he says to the ladies. Why did I ask that?
‘Only the ones I want to kiss again,’ he says, delivering yet another movie-perfect line, and I stand on my tiptoes, pulling him towards me to close the gap between us. His hands move inside my jacket as we kiss again. They’re on my side, dipping slightly into the waistband of my jeans.
‘I think about last December a lot,’ he says, and now he’s looking at the pavement between us. ‘And then you started going on all these dates with all these arseholes, and I hated it, but I didn’t feel like I had any right to. So I tried to stay out of it. It was like, the less I knew, the better.’
‘I know you did,’ I say. ‘It’s okay.’
‘I couldn’t read your blog. Everyone else lapped it up, but I couldn’t. That musician prick. That fucking song. That finance bastard. Do you still write it?’
‘I haven’t. It’s been guest posts for a while.’ I don’t tell him why.
‘Please don’t write about this, Fran, okay? It’s too nice to be picked apart by the internet or turned into clickbait.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ I say. There’s a pause, and I feel a little awkward that he felt he had to ask me not to document this. ‘We should get a move on, otherwise we’ll miss the pizza.’
‘What about Suze?’
‘What about Suze?’ I say, raising an eyebrow. Ollie laughs, kisses me again.
‘Won’t she answer the door for the pizza man?’
‘She’s flying,’ I say. Gaspy breath.
Suddenly I feel as if a pizza in front of Netflix might not be t
he only thing we get up to tonight, and now I’m wondering if it’ll even get eaten at all. Or if we’ll leave it, cheese congealing, cold and forgotten in the box on the coffee table whilst we get it on on the sofa. Suze not being at home raises that likelihood tenfold. My phone vibrates with a notification. ‘Food’s out for delivery,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I’m following you,’ he says, and takes my hand, and that is outside the realms of our friendship, too. Still, I like the way he curls his fingers around mine and I bask in how it feels as I lead us through Stratford, away from the station and around the corner until my building is in front of us.
‘You have a concierge?’ Ollie says.
‘Yep,’ I laugh. ‘It’s mental, right?’
‘Is there a gym as well?’
‘Heck yeah. And a pool with a sauna.’
He looks sideways at me.
‘I know,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘You’re wondering why I’m not some svelte gym bunny, aren’t you?’
‘Not even for a second,’ he says. ‘I had no idea you were so fancy, that’s all.’
‘Nah… No way I could afford to live here without Suze.’
But he’s right, our flat is nice, and I still sometimes feel as if I’m punching above my weight with it. The entrance is lit up and the door man is sitting in his usual spot behind a desk. He looks bored. He picks up his phone and taps at the screen.
‘We might as well wait out here for the pizza,’ I say, and he nods. I slide my hands up his chest and link my arms around his neck again. ‘This is nice isn’t it?’ I say, looking up at him. Yellow light from a street lamp refracts off his hair.
‘It is,’ he agrees, and nods quickly. He tucks some of my hair behind my ear, and it’s lucky I’m holding on because that little movement makes me weak at the knees. He leans down to kiss me again and I close my eyes, waiting for it, and knowing this one is going to be slower, more deliberate, meaningful, but it never happens. His phone rings instead. Leave it, I think. What could be more important than us in this moment? But he doesn’t leave it, and he doesn’t kiss me. He pulls his phone from his pocket and even before I see the screen I know exactly who’s called from the spooked look in his eyes.
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